Rush Hour and the Elephant

I was about three months into my journey, sitting at an outdoor cafe in Phnom Penh and drinking a beer, monopolizing the wifi.It was rush hour, 5pm, and as I was hanging out I saw a full-grown elephant come walking down the street, minded by her trainer and wearing shoes made from recycled tires.

The same thing happened the next day. And the day after that.

And that was when I realized how much my life had changed: I no longer thought “Holy #$#!, there’s an elephant in the road!” but instead: “Oh, there’s the elephant. It must be five o’clock”.

I’m a new reader and these last few weeks I’ve been digging into your blog.

I was disappointed when I just saw the length of this latest post. But then I read it and it made laugh out loudly (which many of them do). It was just perfect.

Over Saturday morning coffee my husband kept looking at me funny. I tried to explain the squat toilet post and summarize the ear street cleaner experience but I wasn’t having much luck with my story telling skills.

Wes, I laughed so hard over this I nearly cried. My exact same realization came in Nepal when I found myself walking down the sidewalk with a huge water buffalo and thought it was entirely normal.Barbara Weibel recently posted..PHOTO: House of Caecilius Jucundu at Pompeii, Italy

This used to be my life. I grew up in a Eastern India of the 90s, when bullock carts would pass right through town and hold up all sorts of ‘conventional’ traffic, foxes would pierce the evenings with their cries, and the cows would squat pretty much everywhere. But rampant thoughtless urbanization has put an end to all these lovely sights. Happy to come across your story :)The Scuttlefish recently posted..all’s well in weligama